Giant Slayer smells the barn
My preparations for finishing and navigating towards the finish line are done. The finish is very near shore, as might be expected, but I have had a lot of room to play out here and now real navigation and routing is needed. I have both the nav computer and the ship gps programmed, and I have a plan in case one or the other sail will not come down. I have had the same spinnaker up now for 4 days, so 1 day out, it will come down, and then right back up, or depending on actual wind, I may switch to the Little Man spinnaker just for the last 12 miles. I plan on jibing for the finish to port tack at 12 miles from the finish. This puts me close to Maui for many hours of sailing. Remarkably no wild life this trip, just a few birds. None came buy to visit. Today I dumped more water, had a bath, and cleaned up the boat and crew. Everyone is happy about that. Winds have moderated, and I’m contemplating the bigger spinnaker, but I will observe the conditions, as swapping up and then back in the night could be trouble. With under 500 miles to go, which is still a very very long way to go mind you, mistakes and risk must be weighed. I am getting a very nice sunset tonight, the first nice one of the trip. Tomorrow being Thursday, a new adventure may be reveled in the fortune cookie. I sense that the fortune cookies fortunes on board have been sifted to make sure they are all happy, good for someone at sea, and may not be as guiding as the normal cookie. My 27 feet of world is doing fine, and all the technology is working which is fantastic. I have had just one shackle fail, and that was in my hand as I was attaching it to a sail, which i think i mentioned already. Somehow, i managed to not have any candy, chocolate, or any sweets at all. How is that possible? No ding-dongs, cupcakes, nothing. 🙁 So, we on the boat have been telling stories, and keeping ourselves entertained, and thinking up new fun adventures, and new shirts, you know t-shirts like “Every Dave is a new opportunity”, and “Don’t let one Dave go by that you don’t try something new”. I think I have about 200 more Dave Shirts. As the weather is changing, and not matching the forecast, I will down load a fresh one, and I can always just look outside too, check the barometer, it is raising when the forecast has it falling, usually, that means that Marry Poppins will be coming to dinner, or that the forecasted low is stalling. The GRIBS tell all. OK, planning on hand driving and I may switch up the XL spinnaker, or I may just keep reading all the books i brought. haha.